Chapter 15: The Dress

"She wears the green," I said.

Nobody at the kitchen table answered.

It was the night after Vincent's call, and the table held a floor plan of the Hargrove ballroom, five cold coffees and my brother's gun.

"No," said Giacomo.

"He told me to. If I wear anything else, he knows I'm planning something."

"Then you wear the green with a plate under it."

"A ceramic plate, under silk, under a spotlight." I shook my head. "It'll show in the first camera shot."

"A thin one."

"A thin one," I agreed, because I wasn't stupid. "Front and back. And it covers my left side."

Franco grunted from the counter.

"My crew takes the catering contract," he said. "Twenty waiters. My guys, in white jackets, on every door and every row of tables by seven."

"Vincent will check the catering list."

"Vincent's catering company has a new owner as of Tuesday. He doesn't know yet."

I almost smiled.

On the couch, in a blanket Franco had thrown at him, Gabriel lifted his head.

"I'll be on the stage," he said. "He still needs me beside her. He said so."

"You'll wear his earpiece," I said.

"He'll talk in it."

"That's why you wear it. Whatever he tells you to do, you do the opposite."

He looked at me for a while.

"And if he says leave the wife again?"

"Then you'll find out what you are, Gabriel."

He didn't answer, and Franco tossed a cold coffee in his direction.

"Drink it," my brother said. "It's the only thing in this house you've earned."

I went upstairs at midnight with the plan still turning in my head.

The bathroom in the safehouse had old white tile and a showerhead that ran scalding for two minutes and then cold.

I turned it on and stood under it with my hair pinned up.

The stitches had been out for a week.

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